Unlikely Friends
by Zolf Edward Elric
Summary: A new cat has been brought to the castle. How is Despereaux going to take this? What is the brave mouse going to with this cat? This is just something I came up with very quickly. I am very bad with Summaries. One-shot


Unlikely Friends

One-shot: The Tale of Despereaux

 **Summary: A new cat has been brought to the castle. How is Despereaux going to take this? What is the brave mouse going to with this cat? This is just something I came up with very quickly. I am very bad with Summaries.**

It was a quite morning in the castle. The mice were going to school, work, or just hanging out with their friends. All but one little mouse. This mouse was different then all of the other mice. He was the smallest in height but had the biggest ears then any mouse every had. He didn't have many friends, and even the friends he did have he never hung out with them. He was always in his own world. The world he escaped to was the worlds inside of stories. He would go out of the mouse town just to read. The outside world didn't interest him for it was dull and gray. It used to be a place were people would laugh and have fun out in the sun… but when the queen died years before Despereaux, the kingdom fell to darkness. It lost its joy. The only joy Despereaux found was in books, until he met the princess. He talked to the princess even though it was forbidden to do so. He was punished by being exiled to the land of rats. There he met a rat who was different from other rats. The two quickly became friends. The rat's name was Roscuro. When Roscuro talked to the princess, he was screamed at, and treated like a filthy animal. That awoken a side of him that was never there, the dark side of his rat self. Even not seeing the sunlight for years he had been goodhearted. The rats kidnapped the princess and were going to eat her. Despereaux came to her rescue and Roscuro felt bad for what he did. After the princess was saved the kingdom went back to the way to the way it had been before the death of the queen. Now Despereaux and Roscuro live in the castle as two of the best friends there. They help out whenever they can and are always by each other's side. Roscuro helped in the kitchen since he loved soup and food in general. Despereaux told stories to help keep a smile on the princess's beautiful face. But young Despereaux's story doesn't end there.

A few Months Later

Our brave little mouse was walking through the castle when he heard a low rumble. It was thunder. There was a storm outside, and by the sounds of it, it was a bad one. Heavy rains, strong winds, a time in which a mouse would surely parish. Despereaux was happy that he was in the castle with its strong stone walls. Despereaux climbed up to a window to see out. The rain was coming down so heavily that Despereaux could not see very far out. The storm could go two ways: get worse or quite down. Despereaux climbed down from the windowsill and headed to the kitchen to head to Mouse town. He was heading home after a long day of reading at the castle's library, that and it was his older brother's birthday. As he headed to the kitchen he could hear voices and they were getting louder. Despereaux realized that the voices were coming from the kitchen. The voices he was hearing was that of his sweet princess and the creative chef. As he got closer he could hear the conversation.

"… you get her?"

Despereaux was only able to here part of what his sweet princess was saying. He would have to get closer. Her sweet voice was interrupted by the master chef of the castle.

"She was out in the cold streets. I couldn't just leave her there to die. I found her when I was coming back from the market. I had gotten fresh ingredients and then I had to rush back to the castle due to the storm starting. I saw her in a wooden box. Look, she is half starved. I have a soft spot for these creatures."

"I don't want her chasing my brave little gentleman."

Despereaux blushed. He loved it when the Princess called him that.

"You don't have to worry about her eating your tiny mouse. She will stay in the kitchen and in a room where she can just be herself. Please Princess, I beg of you to allow me to keep her. I haven't had one since I was a small child."

There was a long pause between their conversation. Despereaux eased closer to the door and perked his big ears up. Waiting to hear more. Waiting to find out where this was going. He had many questions. Who was _'Her'_?" Why would _'Her'_ chase Despereaux? Why was ' _Her'_ making the Princess uneased?

"Alright. We will let her stay here for a week and see how she coops being in this castle. If she chases my gentleman, she will have to find a new home. Does that sound fair?"

"Thank you, Princess. Thank you so much. I promise that she will behave. I thank you."

"Remember just a week. I will come by later."

With that Despereaux quickly got out of the way for the door would be opening. He did not want to be in the way of the door when it opened or he would go flying and hurt himself. Even though he really wanted to talk to the princess, he had to get home. He could not be late for his brother's birthday. He quickly walked through the door as it closed. He looked around the kitchen for _"Her"_. He walked to one of the tables and climbed up the leg of it. Even though he was on a time limit, he still wanted to see what they were talking about. He walked on the side and had to climb into a pot with some soft leafed plant. It had a strange smell. As Despereaux looked around, he saw nothing he hadn't seen before. HE shrugged and quickly slid down the leg of the table and started to head to the hole in the kitchen wall. He heard the door open. The chef had gone into the other room and had just returned.

"There you go. Now I want you to behave yourself. You are not to chase a little mouse. Now, I am going to prepare you a meal for who knows how long you have been out there without food. I will be right back."

Despereaux had stopped moving. Who was he talking to? Despereaux's curiosity got the best of him. He walked slowly to where the chef was just standing, talking to the ground. As he walked over he heard something that sound as if one was asleep. He continued to walk to that area. On the ground he saw something fuzzy. It was moving up and down, up and down. Whatever it was, it was alive. Its head arose and Despereaux could see that it was a cat. He had seen a cat before. The only difference was that this cat was smaller.

 _It must be a kitten. I read about kittens before in the library._

Despereaux thought as he watched the kitten look straight at him. The kitten was all white except for the right half of its head, its front left paw, back right paw and the tip of its tail were a really light shade of grey. It had emerald eyes that stared at Despereaux. Its nose twitched before it got up. Even though Despereaux and the cat were a good distance away, Despereaux had to run underneath the large soup making pot because the cat ran straight for him. The kitten meowed and meowed. Despereaux looked at where the whole in the wall was and saw that it was all the way on the other side of the room. Despereaux couldn't wait for the cat to leave for he wasn't that kind of mouse. He took the chance and ran as fast as his little legs would take him. The kitten followed. Despereaux did zig-zags to throw off the kitten. It was working until…. Despereaux tripped over his own feet. The kitten scoped him up in its mouth and instead of eating him, the kitten brought him over to a blanket, set him down and started to lick him.

"Umm, pardon me, but what is it that you are doing?"

Despereaux said to the young cat. The kitten stopped licking him. It looked down at Despereaux with confusion in its eyes. When it talked to Despereaux, its voice was sweet and pure. It sounded much do Despereaux surprise, a lot like the Princess's voice, if she were younger that is.

"You talk. I didn't know that catnip talked. I didn't even know that catnip could run, but yet, you did."

"I am not catnip. I am a gentleman. More or less anyway. I was born a mouse but grew up a gentleman. What is your name? Why did you think I was catnip?"

Despereaux talked to the kitten. Her emerald eyes were big and round as she talked to the small mouse. The kitten tilted her head.

"I do not have a name. Well, that is until that kind man started to call me Felicette. So, I guess that is my name. I thought you were catnip because you smell of it. There is a pot of catnip up there on the table. You must have walked through it. I am so sorry for chasing you. Will you forgive me?"

Felicette looked at Despereaux, and he looked at her.

"Of course I will forgive you. What kind of gentlemen would I be if I didn't? Also my name is Despereaux."

Despereaux bowed down at the she-cat and the cat dipped her head in response. The little cat had a look in her eyes that Despereaux knew all too well. In her eyes she was longing. He tipped his head slightly to the right in confusion. What was she longing for?

"Excuse me, but may I ask you a question?

The young cat looked at him and nodded.

"What are you longing for?"

The question surprised Felicette. She tilted her head in confusion.

"What is longing? Why do you ask that I long for something?"

"Longing is something you seek, want, desire. You long for something. I can tell. The look in your eyes tells me that you long for something. What do you seek? What are you longing for?"

Felicette looked at the little mouse. He had just met her and could already figure her out. She thought to herself that he was what she was longing for. She took a deep breath in and looked right into Despereaux's brown eyes and answered his question.

"I long for a friend. The streets are where I grew up. It was every cat for themselves. Yet, I was different. I wasn't mean, hostile. I was a curious soul. Many of the cats my age told me that I was going to lead myself to my own death. The told me something all cats are told when they are young. 'Don't be curious. After all, curiosity killed the cat.' Because of this I was alone. I was always in my head. Never cared what happened around me. In my head I was free. I may have been free but I was always alone. That was the price I had to pay to be myself. How is it that you could read me like that? You knew without even knowing me? How?

"Because you are just like me. In more ways then one. It would be an honor to be your friend, if you let me."

"Thank you Despereaux. **I** would be very delighted to have you as my friend. The first one to understand me."

A cat and a mouse as friends. Who would have thought that they would be so different yet so much the same.


End file.
